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Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.

Thomas A. Edison

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Thomas A. Edison
Age: 84 †
Born: 1847
Born: February 11
Died: 1931
Died: October 18
Businessperson
Engineer
Entrepreneur
Film Director
Inventor
Lighting Designer
Mathematician
Physicist
Screenwriter
Milan
Ohio
Thomas A. Edison
Thomas Edison
Edison Thomas Alva
Best
Negative
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Failure
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More quotes by Thomas A. Edison

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I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists - proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision.
Thomas A. Edison
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There is always a better way.
Thomas A. Edison
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We haven't failed. We now know a thousand things that won't work, so we are much closer to finding what will.
Thomas A. Edison
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Show me a thoroughly satisfied man - and I will show you a failure.
Thomas A. Edison
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X-rays ... I am afraid of them. I stopped experimenting with them two years ago, when I came near to losing my eyesight and Dally, my assistant practically lost the use of both of his arms.
Thomas A. Edison
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Of all my inventions, I liked the phonograph best
Thomas A. Edison
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I told [Kruesi] I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on I then shouted Mary had a little lamb, etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. On first words spoken on a phonograph.
Thomas A. Edison
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I have not failed 10,000 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work.
Thomas A. Edison
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I am so deaf I am debarred from hearing all the time articulation and have to depend on the judgment of others.
Thomas A. Edison
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All bibles are man-made.
Thomas A. Edison
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Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. As a result, a genius is often a talented person who has simply done all of his homework.
Thomas A. Edison
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The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me.
Thomas A. Edison
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Success is the product of the severest kind of mental and physical application.
Thomas A. Edison
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Absorb ideas from every source.
Thomas A. Edison
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My main purpose in life is to make money so I can afford to go on creating more inventions.
Thomas A. Edison
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The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.
Thomas A. Edison
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The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
Thomas A. Edison
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I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph. No, when I have, fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go about it, and make trial after trial, until it comes.
Thomas A. Edison
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Nobody knows whether our personalities pass on to another existence or sphere, but if we can evolve an instrument so delicate to be manipulated by our personality as it survives in the next life such an instrument ought to record something.
Thomas A. Edison
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In 'Common Sense' Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again.
Thomas A. Edison